Chapter 1
The bells at Baxter Academy rang out announcing the end of the school day, and suddenly the halls of the aged school building were filled with teenagers pressing their ways to their respective lockers. Kate Bishop made her way through this throng made up of her fellow students, navigating the obstacles they posed as well as she could without resorting to showy gymnastics. Eventually she did indeed make it to her locker, and ultimately out the door to the street, where students were already waiting for their rides. Due to the nature of Baxter Academy as an elite private NYC academy, many of these cars were fancy cars or limousines.
To her left, Kate could hear two football players arguing. "Dude, the way he's all over your sister is just gross. He's like twice her age."
"He is not," Johnny Storm argued. "He's 31, Sue's 24."
Kate didn't need to ask to know they were talking about her physics teacher, Dr. Richards. While his behavior could hardly be described as being "all over" the new English teacher Ms. Storm (at least not during school hours), it was nonetheless an open secret that he and she were dating.
"Hey, when I'm undressing her with my eyes I don't wanna be thinking how my science teacher has his old hands all over her."
"Dude," protested Johnny, "she's my sister."
Another student, Tori von Duume, leant over and interjected, "You're just jealous you couldn't win her yourself, Grimm."
Kate smirked, silently agreeing with Tori's assessment. Not that she blamed Ben, of course--she couldn't deny that Ms. Storm was hot.
Her cell phone buzzed, and Kate quickly pulled it out of her purse and glanced at the screen. It was a text from Maria Hill consisting of just two letters: AA.
Kate knew what those letters meant. It was the Avengers' call to assemble.
A few moments later, a motorcycle pulled up in front of the school, weaving its way through all the fancy cars and limousines. The driver of the motorcycle was a tall, athletic woman, apparently in her late 20's. She was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, her long blonde hair flying loose behind her.
"Whoa, who's that hottie?" Johnny asked.
Kate smiled. "That's my ride," she answered as she caught the helmet thrown to her by Stephanie Rogers-Coulson. She quickly put it on and hopped onto the motorcycle behind Stephanie, who began to weave through the traffic again as she made their way uptown across Manhattan towards Stark Tower.
"What's up?" Kate asked.
"Giant robots in Central Park," Stephanie answered. "Stark's already on scene."
In much less time than anyone else would have been able to get there safely (never mind legally), Kate and Stephanie were in the women's locker rooms on the Avengers' floor of Stark Tower. Natasha Romanov was zipping up her jumpsuit as they entered.
"Stephanie, Miss Bishop," Romanov greeted them without emotion. It pained Kate to know that her addition to the team had strained the previously strong friendship between Stephanie and Natasha. She supposed that it was inevitable; after all, the previous Hawkeye, Clint Barton, had been one of Romanov's closest friends, and had been the one to convince the Black Widow to defect to S.H.I.E.L.D. And when it had been revealed that he had actually been a HYDRA agent all along, it was Romanov who had had to kill him. Seeing Kate don her uniform as the new Hawkeye no doubt drug up the pain of Barton's betrayal and what Romanov had been forced to do every time the Avengers went into battle.
But that wasn't something Kate could afford to worry about now, she knew as she buckled her uniform's belt and fastened her quiver. Her entire attention needed to be focused on the upcoming batlle; after all, there were apparently killer robots in Central Park.
"Is it just me," Tony Stark said several hours later, "or did those robots look a lot like Chitauri technology?"
The Avengers, now dressed in casual wear rather than uniforms, were assembled in a secure conference room on their floor in Stark Tower, participating in a post-mission debriefing after the giant robots in Central Park incident. As usual, Stark was playing his home court advantage to its fullest.
At the front of the room, Maria Hill and Phil Coulson exchanged a glance. "It's not just you," Phil admitted.
"FitzSimmons have been leading the SI research team analyzing the debris brought back from the incident," Hill added. "Dr. Simmons?"
Jemma Simmons stood up nervously. "Uh, yes, ma'am. Our analysis is still in the preliminary stages," she answered in her crisp British accent, "but as of this stage, yes, it does seem that it was indeed designed along the lines of Chitauri technology." She sat down, looking relieved to be finished her report and able to give the floor back to Hill.
If Kate was honest with herself, she sported a huge crush on Jemma Simmons. The British scientist was unreasonably pretty, charmingly adorkable, and had a sexy accent to boot. She knew, of course, that it was even more hopeless than her attraction to Ms. Storm: she wasn't sure how old Simmons was, but the woman had two doctorates; she wasn't going to be interested in a high-school junior, even if said high-schooler did happen to be a superhero.
"And how exactly did whoever do this get their hands on Chitauri tech in order to copy it?" Stark asked.
Phil and Hill exchanged another glance. "There are two possibilities," Phil answered. "The first is they could have been onsite in the immediate aftermath of the invasion and may have recovered a Chitauri artifact before S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to gain full control of the situation."
"And the other?" Stephanie asked her husband, although Kate was pretty sure she already knew the answer.
"It's possible they could have received the information through a leak within S.H.I.E.L.D. itself," Phil admitted.
"The most obvious culprit for such a leak being HYDRA," Romanov noted, tonelessly. It was not a question, and the room sat in silence for a moment, no one wanting to respond to the statement.
"Fortunately, none of the casualties from the incident were fatal," Hill interjected at last.
"That was more luck than anything else," Stephanie countered, slipping into her role as team leader. "We still need to work on our coordination. . . ."
It was another hour before the debriefing was over, but finally over it was, and the Avengers and their support staff dispersed, ready to return to the various activities of their disparate lives. "Ready to head home?" Phil asked Kate as he gathered up his briefcase.
"Sure," Kate agreed as she reached for her own backpack and purse and followed him down the hall to the elevator, the doors of which opened for them automatically.
"The parking level please, JARVIS," Phil said.
"Of course, Agent Coulson," JARVIS answered as the elevator began its descent. A second later the doors opened on the parking level, and Kate followed Phil to his sporty red '62 corvette, Lola, and got into the passenger seat. Within minutes they were travelling down FDR Drive towards the Brooklyn Bridge.
Without the excuse of an emergency, it took Phil far longer to get Lola down the length of Manhattan than it had taken Stephanie on her motorcycle. It took them a full 40 minutes before they pulled in front of Phil and Stephanie's Windsor Terrace home. Unsurprisingly, Stephanie's motorcycle already sat in the driveway; she had beaten them home.
As they entered the front door, they were greeted with a barrage of enticing scents. "Looks like Steph's already started dinner," Phil noted with a grin. "You hungry?"
"Famished," Kate agreed. It was already getting close to eight p.m., after all, and she hadn't eaten since lunch, and had had an exhausting afternoon of fighting giant robots in Central Park.
"Go get started on your homework," Phil told her. "We'll come get you when it's ready."
Kate flashed Phil a grateful smile then headed towards the room that he and Stephanie had given to her. A veteran of the Florida foster care system, Kate was used to relying on the charity of strangers, and yet was still constantly surpised at how easily Phil and Stephanie had opened up their home and their family to her.
She threw her backpack on her bed, then removed her school uniform from it and hung it up in her closet. Then she extracted her pre-calc textbook and sat down at her desk, ready to attack her homework.
In some ways, fighting giant robots was a lot easier.